Our excitement with getting back to normal can’t cover up how strange the journey back there will be
I’m writing weekly for Medium about my experiences as an emergency medicine doctor during the Covid-19 pandemic. You can read my previous posts on vaccine inequities, the variants, and more, here.
The summer is starting to look spectacular. The White House recently announced the U.S. will have enough vaccines by the end of May to inoculate every American adult. By the Fourth of July, we should be able to start celebrating our independence from Covid-19.
It’s about time. We’ve all had our fill of Zoom meetings, classes, and weddings. …
A call to broaden the mental health standard of care
America is in the midst of a mental health crisis that will have lasting effects. In January, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that more than one in three adults were experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression, a number which has steadily increased since April of 2020. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, concerns about racial injustice, climate change, and state of the economy, among other stressors, are creating an unprecedented storm. People are hurting.
The need for mental health support is becoming even more critical, yet many still face significant barriers. As a clinical psychologist and executive at…
Good Question
Beans, broccoli, and many other plant foods can be major gas triggers
In my household, for reasons that are obscure even to me, “fart” is a bad word. At some point, my wife and I must have decided that we didn’t want to hear our kids use the F-word all the time, so we adopted “toot” as a gentler substitute. Beans and other legumes are often on our menu, and things can get pretty tooty around here.
The medical term for gas is “flatus.” While gas production varies from person to person, research has found that healthy people “pass flatus” up to 25 times a day. According to a 2013 study in…
For the most part, getting a Covid-19 vaccination shouldn’t change any of your typical health, fitness, or wellness routines, or at least not for more than a day or two. Still, it’s reasonable to have questions about whether you should hold off on certain things, such as working out, drinking alcohol, or taking certain medications. Below are some of the common questions people have about what they should or shouldn’t do after vaccination related to their own health. …
Monday Move
Don’t @ me
Sometimes, you just need to go ahead and do the sucky thing: Tell people the news they don’t want to hear. Make the tough decision. Put that beloved toy that sings the creepy song out on the sidewalk while your toddler is napping.
Blast the death metal and do the goddamn burpees.
Hear me out: Yes, burpees suck, but if you’re physically able to do them (and willing to get sweaty and exhausted), they are also… the best. When you get into a rhythm of slamming yourself down on the floor and getting right back TF up again, the intensity…
Observations from a reluctant exerciser, in a pandemic
I have always been a sporadic exerciser. And, yes, that’s euphemistic. My periods of regular exercise historically come in fits and starts, then disappear as quickly as they arrive — replaced with dark chocolate and binge-watching.
In fact, years ago, I pitched and was hired to write a “reluctant exerciser” column for a popular women’s magazine, which wound up being a bit more reluctant than the editors had hoped. Sure enough, the stories quickly became about what lipgloss and cute headbands to wear while hiking, instead of about climbing mountains.
Most of the times when I’ve successfully maintained an exercise…
What’s more, they’re looking to eradicate infectious diseases entirely
“Unless we’re screened for coronaviruses and then shot out into space, leaving all other animals and nature behind, we’re going to have coronaviruses.” So says Benjamin Neuman, PhD, chief virologist at Texas A&M’s Global Health Research Complex. Neuman is no stranger to coronaviruses — he has been working with them for decades. His expertise even landed him a spot on the international committee that named SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. SARS-CoV-2 is the most recent member of the coronavirus family, which also includes the viruses that caused the SARS and MERS outbreaks.
The Nuance
Anti-fat bias and weight-loss fixation — including among doctors — is a problem that must be remedied
The study’s findings were surprising, even to its organizers.
Led by researchers at the CDC and the National Cancer Institute, the study examined roughly 30 years of data collected from tens of thousands of Americans. Its purpose was to identify associations between body mass index (BMI) and excess mortality. Its findings, which were published in JAMA in 2005, revealed that adults who were overweight were at no greater risk of death than those who fell into the “normal” BMI range. …
Vaccination offers protection against the viral threat, but your brain needs time to reset after a year living with the fear
Rachel Gersten is a licensed mental health and wellness counselor and, as she says, a believer in science. All throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the co-founder of a New York–based wellness company followed official public health guidance on safe behavior and avoided illness. She’s on the other side of peak risk now because she is fully vaccinated. Even so, having reached this stage, the 34-year-old is experiencing dissonance: Gersten’s foundation in science tells her on an intellectual level that she’s largely protected from the coronavirus; emotionally, however, her brain can’t catch up.
“If you fall off a horse, you get back…
The real reason women should drink less than men
It’s no surprise to anyone that drinking has increased dramatically as a result of the pandemic. As a pattern, drinking increases with any extreme stressor, and recent market research shows that alcohol sales went up by 55% during the pandemic’s peak.
This increased alcohol use has been particularly notable among women. Though even before 2020, women were beginning to drink more. What many may not realize is that women tend to have worse outcomes from increased drinking — worse outcomes in health issues, psychological consequences, and progression to an alcohol use disorder.
